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Questions on searching Hebrew and Hebrew word statistics

Hi,

Now I've read the manual on searching and looked at command-line examples, I'm not really any closer to what I need to do. I'd appreciate help with two things:
1. I want to search on all occurrences of a given lemma. As an example, I want to look for all the occurrences of Gimel-Aleph-Lamed, from the verb ga'al, in verb or noun form. The command line example shows
Version search string
WTM la;G" (but the example shows it in Hebrew).

I would like to ger a verse list and statistics on verbs and nouns based upon this word, "redeem." I did the search in English but I can't seem to get BW9 to give me statistics for the Hebrew. It will only give me statistics for the English version I first searched. I changed the search version to WTM, and then pasted the Hebrew lemma into the command line. That resulted in a highlighted verse in the browse window but suddenly the verse list became blank.

If, alternatively, I search the WTT, I can only find occurrences of the Lemma, but not variations on it like nouns. Also when I try to type the consonants into the command line, I ge a list of Hebrew words. I can't tell what I'm supposed to do with that, because when I scroled down to find my word and clicked on it, nothing happened. It showed that the lemma form is used 26 times. I need a count of all the occurrences, though I'm not sure how to exclude the homonym for "defile" How do I search on all forms based upon the lemma?

2. I want statistics for the words. That's the most important part. How many times does any form appear? How many occurrences of the verb? How many of the related noun?

It looks to me like ti should be possible to get this information, but I cannot figure out how. It's easy to search for Greek forms mostly, but I can't figure out the Hebrew one. Thanks.

In further experimentation, it looks like I can search for forms by finding my word in WTT, ,switching versions to WTM, right-clicking on my lemma, and choosing the option to copy phrase to the command line. I still don't know, however, if this gave me nouns as well, or if there is any way to exclude the homonym.

Got the following list of noun occurrences for the lemma meaning "redeem:"

Lev. 25:24, 26, 29, 31-32, 48, 51-52
Ruth 4:6
Jer. 32:7-8
Ezek. 11:15

Method:
1. Search for *gal* (with wildcards) in WTT
2. Save results to Verse List Manager.
3. Switch version from WTT to WTM in VLM.
4. Switch search version in the Command Line to WTM.
5. Export list from VLM to search results in Command Line.
6. Limit search to just the search results list.
7. Now search for *gal*@n* (the same lemma, but this time in WTM limited to just your original search results and only the noun forms).
8. Weed out the proper nouns and the one occurrence of a "gal" noun that refers to "defilement" (Neh. 13:29).

If I missed something, someone else will surely correct (and they might even be named "Shirley").

In further experimentation, it looks like I can search for forms by finding my word in WTT, ,switching versions to WTM, right-clicking on my lemma, and choosing the option to copy phrase to the command line. I still don't know, however, if this gave me nouns as well, or if there is any way to exclude the homonym.

You do not even have to switch versions to WTM. After right-clicking on the word in WTT, choose the option "Search on Lemma." That will give you all instances of the "root" word, and (as you noticed) all lemmas with the exact same consonantal spelling (nouns, verbs, homonyms). If you click on the arrow to the right of the command line, BW will drop down a list of recent searches which you have done. Click on the last word in the list, and it will display on the command line again. If you want a list of only the verbs, after the @ symbol (and before the *) type a "v" (just the letter, not with quotation marks). and hit the enter key. This will give you a list of all the verses in which the given lemma is a verb. If you want to find nouns, after the lemma appears on the command line, type the letter n after the @ symbol and click enter. That will give you all the nouns with the same lemma spelling as the verb.
Mark Eddy

Thanks for the input. I wish this was easier. I tried searching for non-verb forms with
ga'al (in Hebrew)@n*
Bibleworks did not like that at all. How can I specify
"Search for this Hebrew lemma, but only return non-verbs"?

Thanks for the input. I wish this was easier. I tried searching for non-verb forms with
ga'al (in Hebrew)@n*
Bibleworks did not like that at all. How can I specify
"Search for this Hebrew lemma, but only return non-verbs"?

You have two problems to deal with. First there are two different g'l roots. One to avenge / ransom. The other to defile. This means there are similar forms that have different meanings.
If you are looking for "Goel" the word often rendered as kinsman redeemer, you need to look for the Qal participle which is a verbal form. Since the same root for Goel is often used as a noun to describe the "avenger of blood" a search on the forms can be confusing if you can't read the Hebrew context. I would start by using a Hebrew lexicon and following the references that are listed there.

To sort things out, it may be helpful to look at the "Word" tab in the right column. It can provide the full wordlist for the WTM morphological text, and will help you see how things are being analyzed. There is a long list of forms for גאל. It starts like this:

This shows that the first noun entry is the "defiling" one. Lots of verb forms follow, but if you scroll down, you'll see:

There are the noun forms given as גאלה. Clicking on any of them will conduct that search.
Does that help?

Non-verb search

Originally Posted by Duncan

Thanks for the input. I wish this was easier. I tried searching for non-verb forms with
ga'al (in Hebrew)@n*
Bibleworks did not like that at all. How can I specify
"Search for this Hebrew lemma, but only return non-verbs"?

What do you mean "did not like that at all"? If you got an error it means you didn't enter the Hebrew word correctly. That search should provide results.

Keep in mind also that you can do things like LAG@[nv]* . This will find nouns and verbs. You can put any parts of speech between the brackets and it won't find the ones you left out.